


I'll Be As Honest As You Let Me

by btBatt



Series: cap's craptastic birthday series [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 23:52:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15351564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/btBatt/pseuds/btBatt
Summary: (iw spoilers)A couple of people from the medical staff arrive then, swiftly but not frantic or rushing. Once they get to Tony, though, there will be no deterring them. The gurney rolls closer, and Steve feels a kind of fear that’s the polar opposite of the paralyzing terror he’s gotten used to. This is the grasping fear that lights a reckless fire under his ass.“Hey,” Steve says, filled with a sudden and burning need to make Tony understand. His hand lands on Tony’s forearm, and he leans close so his face is over Tony’s, who’s blinking like he’s trying to keep from crossing his eyes. “I’m so—happy.” He chokes on the word, but only because it’s true. “I’m so happy you’re back, that you’re alive, and I’m so grateful. I wouldn’t trade you for anyone. I wouldn’t trade you for all of them.”





	I'll Be As Honest As You Let Me

They actually end up back in the states by the time the Fourth rolls around. It’s not necessarily that the government wants them there, exactly, but they’re in too many fragmented shards to effectively do anything about it when the Avengers quietly fly back onto the compound grounds. They’re at something of a standstill since they’ve gotten back—“they” being Steve, Natasha, Thor, Bruce, Rhodey, and Rocket. They’ve been in touch with Scott, and Clint came stumbling through the doors almost a week after they returned, looking haunted and crashing into Nat immediately. His entire family, gone. Just like that. Just like the rest of them.

Nobody says anything about the date this time around, but even then Steve feels like they’re all aware of what day it is. He feels maybe a little guilty about it, but mostly he doesn’t care. They have other things to focus on, even if all they can do is falteringly put out political fires and sooth the chaos that’s been consuming Earth since Thanos destroyed everything.

So, no, nobody’s dancing around with an American flag tied around their neck like a cape, yelling “Happy birthday, Mr. America!” but Natasha’s been hovering all day, following him into every room and he knows she’s just worried, but it’s making him twitchy. This time last year it had just been Steve and Sam in a little safe house in northern France, and—the memory of Sam makes something drop out from under Steve, the floor, or part of his stomach. Nobody had even been there with Sam as he’d blown away, not like Steve witnessed Bucky, or like Okoye witnessed T’Challa, or like Rocket witnessed Groot. Nobody was there with Sam, and they didn’t even know he was gone until he just didn’t come back. Nobody could find him, and a scan of the battlefield turned up nothing. The tracking signal from his comm was lost entirely, which wouldn’t have happened if he’d just been hiding or injured or the normal kind of dead somewhere.

It’s easier to accept the disappearances of people when someone reported back that it happened right in front of their eyes. It’s still wrong that Bucky can just be gone, so wholly and suddenly, but Steve saw it happen. It’ll haunt him for the rest of his life, sure, but at least he knows. With the others, with Sam and—they’ve had to accept it by now, or at least acknowledge it—Tony, it feels like they’ll walk through the door any second, pissy (Sam) and hurt (Tony) and complaining about being left behind (both of them).

And so it’s different this year, and infinitely worse, though if you’d told Steve that on his ninety-ninth birthday he probably would’ve just walked out into oncoming traffic. It had been just him and Sam, and things hadn’t been good—in fact, Steve had been pretty incredibly depressed, but he’d also been living with the knowledge that his team was, if not _happy_ or _together_ then at least _alive._

Bruce is half-slumped at the kitchen island when Steve walks in, and this is where Natasha stops trailing him like a shadow and melts away, back, out of the room. It’s not that she and Bruce are avoiding one another; too much has happened for them to really be hung up over their shared history. But it does look like Bruce has been up again all night and into the day. If Steve had to hazard a guess, he’d say Bruce just got off another conference call with Helen and Shuri as they try to work out some of the logistical problems the world is facing. While Nat’s not half as wary around Bruce as she was once upon a time, the man really doesn’t deserve the extra stress.

“Mornin’,” Bruce mumbles without opening his eyes.

“Not quite,” Steve says, “and I think it might be ‘goodnight’ for you.”

“Eh.” Bruce wiggles his fingers in Steve’s direction, and Steve knows the man well enough to be able to interpret the gesture as _I wish._ Steve, being the good team leader he is, goes to start a pot of coffee instead of arguing the point. “Just waiting for Rocket to finish a couple prototypes.”

It’s silent for a couple of minutes as Steve puts together two mugs of coffee and slides one over to Bruce, who sniffs it, and takes a sip even though Steve knows for a fact it burns his tongue.

“Thanks,” Bruce says, a little more alert already. And maybe he’s burnt some of the nerves off the tip of his tongue, because he doesn’t sound particularly like he's just scalded it.

Steve’s sideswiped by a wave of grief so powerful he has to put his palms flat against the kitchen counter and breathe through it, just for a moment. Bruce is—his hair is ruffled and sleepy looking, it would remind him of the old days, when the team had first formed, except last night he didn’t just stay down in his lab for the thrill of the experiment, he didn’t lose track of time, he’s exhausted from trying to fix problems with no solutions. There’s a crushing weight on top of Bruce, on all of them, one Steve swears he can see hunching them over, pressing them down. They all thought Bruce was dead, and Steve’s truly happy he’s not, that he’s here, and that he’s alive—he is, and he’s grateful, even underneath all the rest of the despair. And so many of the people in Steve’s life are gone now. It’s like waking up from the ice all over again.

Shuri’s estimated that about half of life on Earth is left. Half of them gone. And when Steve counts out the people left in his own life, looks at the statistics, that sounds about right. Half have dissolved into dust at their fingertips, and the rest of them are too torn up about it to be considered entirely alive anymore anyway.

Steve takes another breath, and he feels every single one of his hundred years making themselves known.

Something must show on his face, because Bruce asks about his plans for the day, and so Steve goes through a washed down report. He’s got to do some follow up with a couple of the community leaders they’ve started working with, and he can actually call the woman from Denver now that they’ve got their phone towers (or enough of them) back online, and he needs to touch base with a couple of his old SHIELD contacts living down in NYC.

He doesn’t mention his birthday though, or reminisce on birthdays past. It’s not that it hurts any more to call up those memories today than it has any year before, but he’ll admit that he feels so far removed from any concept of celebrating his life that he’s concerned. He can’t seem to conjure the feelings of loss and the pinpoint pain he associates with missing any specific person. His feelings in general are a mess that have mostly settled into a knot of numbness. Distantly, he’s afraid that if he remembers today, if he thinks of how he used to feel, of the times his spirit was lifted or let down on his birthday, he might leech all the color and emotion and life out of the memories for the rest of his days. It’s a possibility that would feel like spitting on the living memories of his friends, of anyone he’s lost.

Bruce has never been a super talkative guy, and Steve really should get going so he can do some of the things he needs to get done. Nonetheless, they sit listlessly in the kitchen, chatting away.

“And when we asked him—” Bruce is saying when FRIDAY interrupts him.

“There appears to be a situation,” she says.

Steve feels the dread kick in already. FRIDAY only speaks up when it’s serious, when something’s happened. Steve really doesn’t think he can talk another small military off a ledge; he doesn’t actually have anything to offer them, anything to reassure them that the Avengers can handle the current global situation.

“What is it, Fri?” Bruce says, and Steve grinds his teeth together. He doesn’t have time for this right now. He can curl up in a ball and cry later, after whatever it is has been dealt with.

“An unidentified spacecraft is approaching the atmosphere.”

Steve and Bruce share a look. That dread weighing Steve down solidifies, becomes the terrible thing he feared, and suddenly he can move again.

They’ve set aside one of the smaller conference rooms for surveillance and communications. When Bruce and Steve speedwalk in, Clint’s at the control chair and Natasha’s got her hands braced on the back, leaning down to look at the screen. Her mouth is tight when she turns to look at them.

“Any idea what this thing is?” Steve asks, demands, because he’s Captain America, and he needs all the information they have now so he can come up with some impossible way to deal with it.

“Not a clue," Clint says, and he looks grim, serious, but not afraid. Behind him, on the screen, there are coordinates, speeds, data that looks slightly off to Steve.

“What clues do we have, then?” Steve demands.

“It’s going faster than anything built on Earth could go,” Natasha says, leaning over Clint’s shoulder to swipe through some figures, “but that’s not exactly unexpected. Appears to have come out of nowhere and…apparated into our solar system, for lack of a better word.”

Rhodey, Thor, and Rocket stride in, then, with Rocket perched on Thor’s bicep.

“There are plenty of words for it,” Clint fires back, not quite smiling, but close. “You’re just a nerd. And we haven’t been able to get a line to them yet, either.”

“Do we have a visual on this thing?” Rhodey asks.

“Not yet,” Clint says. “Satellite’s still working on it.”

“Friday,” Steve says, “start prepping the Quinjet. I want it ready.”

“Sure thing, Cap,” FRIDAY says.

It drags on, all of them standing around, focusing on the screen. Bruce is still standing closest to the door, breathing evenly. Natasha and Clint are impossibly still, coiled and tense, but calm, ever the SHIELD agents. Thor’s fists are clenched, and his face is exhausted. Rhodey looks how Steve imagines he himself must look; shoulders straight, face impassive, a soldier in a war that will never end. He still has a hard time reading Rocket’s face, but the raccoon’s eyes are narrowed as he studies the information on display.

“Is that…” Rocket starts, but he doesn’t finish, and Thor simply runs his hand over Rocket’s tail.

“Visual acquired,” FRIDAY says, and a clear image of a once-yellow spaceship fills the screen, held together with what looks to be the space equivalent of duct tape. Something shifts in Steve’s skull, and it’s not exactly relief, but this ship doesn’t look like it’s necessarily a threat either.

“Okay…” Rhodey says, drawing the word out. Steve agrees.

“Don’t discount them yet,” Steve reminds them (and himself). “It could still be—”

“That’s my ship,” Rocket says, looking _awed._ When Steve turns, Rocket’s eyes are wide and wet-looking, and Thor’s brought his hand back up and is resting in on the raccoon’s shaking back.

“That’s my ship,” Rocket says again, louder. He pushes Thor’s hand away and jumps onto the table so he’s inches from the image. “That’s my team.”

Whatever’s left of them, Steve thinks, looking back at the ship. He wants to be hopeful, wants to share Rocket’s newfound optimism, but all he can conjure up is something close to embarrassment, like watching Clint make a stupid jump without a plan and knowing Tony’s going to have to give himself whiplash to get to his falling teammate in time. He wants to look away. Doesn’t.

“Do you have anything with you that would let us establish communications with the ship?” Steve asks.

“I, uh—no, no I actually don’t. It would take me about half an hour to get something put together from your primitive bullshit.”

“It won't take them half as long as that to land,” Thor comments, studying the numbers in front of them again.

“So we, what,” Natasha says. “Wait for them to land and follow in the ‘jet?”

“No, no. I got—” Rocket says. He has to chase his tail briefly before he can reach a pouch toward the back of his belt. He takes out what looks like a smooth quarter and somehow makes it click a couple of times.

“Beacon,” Rocket says, sounding breathless. “They’ll know to come here.”

Still looking pretty faint, Rocket kneels next to the keyboard.

"I want medical prepped and ready,” Steve says to the room at large, eyeing the sad-looking ship.

“On it,” Bruce says, and slips out the door.

“Rocket, Thor,” Steve says. “I want you monitoring the ship’s arrival. Everyone else.” He takes a deep breath, lets the air bottom out in his lungs, ends on a sigh. “Suit up.”

The ship touches down on the landing pad seventeen minutes later. Steve couldn’t tell anyone exactly why he’s so tense, but there’s electricity in his spine. He’s got a weird feeling about this. Luckily, nobody asks why they’re suiting up. They all just do it, even Rhodey. Steve thinks they might feel it too, probably just an exceptional discomfort at the prospect of dealing with more unknown quantities. After all, Thanos was a month and a half ago, and they haven’t heard from any of Rocket’s team before now. Steve tells himself it’s just because Rocket doesn’t have communication equipment available that could cross galaxies.

When they’d first come stumbling back to the compound to lick their wounds and scream themselves awake, Rhodey had pulled Steve aside and given him his shield. A modified, upgraded shield. Rhodey had explained with slumped shoulders because Tony hadn’t come back yet, because at that point it was just becoming evident that he must’ve dissolved too, somewhere far, far away from the rest of them. So Rhodey looked like he wanted to cry, but his eyes were hard, daring Steve to say something against Tony. And Steve, pressure building in the bridge of his nose, the back of his throat, had only been able to nod, teeth clenched, and take the shield back to his bedroom with him.

The shield is hanging at his back now, as he stands at the edge of the landing pad. The touchdown is a little rough, but Steve can’t tell if that’s because the ship’s in such bad shape or because they’re operating without a full crew. Rocket’s anticipation is palpable as they stare at the ship. It’s only about thirty seconds until the hatch is sliding open, but they’re some of the longest seconds of Steve’s life, he thinks.

Two figures, Steve thinks, brain in threat assessment mode. One leaning on the other, but walking more or less under its own power.

They’re not backlit or anything, the lighting is good and clear. Even so, it takes Steve a good few seconds to understand that he recognizes one of the figures. That it’s—impossibly—Tony getting off Rocket’s spaceship with a blue alien lady. Steve thinks, fuzzily, Tony's hurt, and he wills himself to _move,_ but that terrible paralysis from earlier has returned. Rhodey’s out of the War Machine armor before Steve can so much as breathe.

“Tony,” Bruce says, sounding shocked, and Natasha grabs Steve by the arm hard enough to bruise. Rhodey’s arms are around Tony, and they sway unsteadily. Steve takes two faltering steps forward, and Natasha lets him, though he feels like it’s impossible to get too close to Tony and Rhodey when they’re having such a moment.

It’s been so long since he’s seen Tony. It’s been—Jesus, it’s been years by now, that’s not an incorrect thing to say. Steve feels like he’s floating, being propelled. He’s closer now.

“Who are you?” he asks the blue lady. It looks like she has circuitry integrated into her biology, but who knows. Maybe that’s just her species. Steve doesn’t actually care. Her eyes flicker over all of them at least twice before she answers.

“Nebula,” she says, mumbles, like she thinks she’s falling for a trick question. Steve wants to thank her, opens his mouth to do just that, when Rocket bounds between them.

“Where are they?” he asks, looking past Nebula and into the belly of the spaceship. He almost smiles in what Steve recognizes as his attempt to make light of the situation. “Come on, ya creepy cyborg, where’s your sister?”

Nebula shakes her head.

“Where are they?” Rocket demands, despair leaking into his voice. “Aw, please. Quill? Drax?”

“They’re gone,” Nebula snaps. “They’re all gone.”

The hopelessness pulls at Steve again, but he thinks it pulls at them all this time. The energy drains away from the scene, and Steve can see Tony out of his peripheral vision, clinging to Rhodey tighter, pressing his nose into Rhodey’s neck. And that’s it, Steve’s hope is back. The rest of Rocket’s team is dead, literal ash in the wind, and Steve’s sorry about it, just like he’s sorry about everyone else, but for the first time in weeks the ground is solid under his feet. Earth’s greatest defender is back beyond all expectation and _they’ll figure it out._

Before Steve can figure out what to do with the mess of feelings, Tony’s crumpling to the ground, pulling Rhodey down with him. Rhodey rolls off Tony and works on navigating the awkward position around the exoskeleton bracing his legs, and Steve takes his place next to Tony faster than he can think.

“Tony,” he says urgently. “Hey, Shellhead.”

“Whoa,” Tony says, “headrush.”

“He’s bleeding internally,” Nebula growl-mumbles. Tony’s hand flaps idly where it’s resting on his chest.

“Only a little bit,” he says.

“A little bit of internal bleeding is still internal bleeding,” Steve says even though he thinks it might be a lost cause. Surely Tony knows the mechanics of bleeding; he just doesn’t particularly care.

“Well, yeah,” Tony says, and laughs breathlessly. “But it’s still only a little. I’m probably just anemic.”

Steve rolls his eyes, pauses halfway through, wonders if he’s allowed to react that way to Tony anymore, after everything. He blinks a few times to recover the disjointed movement.

“Bruce,” he calls. Rhodey stays back, leaving room for Bruce to check Tony out and letting Clint pull him back to his feet.

“They’re on their way,” Bruce says, and he’s closer than Steve thought he was. He’s on the other side of Tony now, reaching down and feeling Tony’s pulse, looking into Tony’s eyes in that too-intense way he only ever does when he’s checking for pupil dilation. Tony looks back for a long few moments, grave clarity settling in him, before his eyes unfocus slightly.

“It happened here too,” Tony says quietly, like an observation, like he already expected it.

“Yeah,” Steve whispers. Tony’s head rolls on the ground as he turns to watch Steve instead.

“So it wouldn’t have made a difference,” Tony says, sounding a little less with it than he was just seconds before. “Even on Earth, he could’ve…”

“Tony,” Bruce says, “focus. What happened.”

“Stabbed,” Tony says vaguely. “Closed the wound, but not well enough I guess.”

"From what I can see, you must've done something right,” Bruce says. “If you’ve been bleeding for a month and a half while traveling back, it has to be only a tiny bit.”

A couple of people from the medical staff arrive then, swiftly but not frantic or rushing. Once they get to Tony, though, there will be no deterring them. The gurney rolls closer, and Steve feels a kind of fear that’s the polar opposite of the paralyzing terror he’s gotten used to. This is the grasping fear that lights a reckless fire under his ass.

“Hey,” Steve says, filled with a sudden and burning need to make Tony understand. His hand lands on Tony’s forearm, and he leans close so his face is over Tony’s, who’s blinking like he’s trying to keep from crossing his eyes. “I’m so—happy.” He chokes on the word, but only because it’s true. “I’m so happy you’re back, that you’re alive, and I’m so grateful. I wouldn’t trade you for anyone. I wouldn’t trade you for all of them.”

And he’s probably saying this all wrong, because he always says the important things in a way that makes them sound half-assed, like he doesn’t mean it, but goddammit he means this, he means this and Tony needs to know. Tony needs to get it, that when Steve says ‘we don’t trade lives,’ that also means Tony’s life. He realized, a week or so after Thanos, that he never made that clear to Tony, didn’t even hint at it. Steve never would have said this Before. He remembers their last phone conversation, when they danced around the words they meant and half of it was spent in silence. Time wasted. Time spent quiet when they could have been clearing things up, time spent apart when they could’ve been a united front against the world and its various threats. They’ve lost enough, they don’t have anything left to waste.

Tony narrows his eyes at Steve, even as the medical guys try to pull his attention and ask questions, even as Natasha tugs Steve backwards to give them room to maneuver. Tony gets onto the shortened gurney mostly under his own power, but is still distractible and out of it. Bruce starts relaying information, walking behind the gurney, telling them what he’s observed and been told. When the door closes behind them, Rocket’s quiet sniffles and Thor’s soft voice are the only sounds.

***

“Thanos stabbed him,” Nebula tells them later. Rocket’s head is resting listlessly against Thor’s elbow and they’re all crowded into one common room on the couches and chairs, waiting for doctors to close up Tony’s stab wound properly and politely ignoring Steve’s outpouring of emotion on the landing pad. “Ran him through with part of his own armor.”

Something at Steve’s core shivers with the knowledge, the visceral understanding of just how close they were to losing Tony. Rhodey looks a little green.

“He fought that closely with Thanos?” Thor asks, but there’s no disbelief or mocking in his voice, only that tired seriousness. Steve gets a flash of a memory, how impossibly strong Thanos had been for the three seconds Steve had been close enough to touch. Nebula’s quiet for a couple beats too long, not looking at any of them.

“The wizard traded the Time Stone for his life,” she says quietly, and her eyes find Steve’s. “Why?”

“The wizard?” Steve echoes dumbly.

“Stephen Strange,” Bruce says. “He and Tony didn’t even know each other before that day. Why would he trade a Stone for Tony?”

Nebula turns to regard him for a moment before jerking her shoulder in an awkward shrug.

“He looked into possible futures,” she admits. “There’s only one where we win, and he put us on the right track.”

“But this wizard guy…dissolved before he could actually explain the rest of the plan, right?” Clint guesses.

“Yes,” Nebula says. “Both him and the kid.”

“Wait, what kid?” Clint says at the same time that Bruce bends forward in his seat and grips his hair.

“Oh, Jesus,” Rhodey says, standing and walking away, into the kitchen.

“Spider-Man,” Natasha says, knowingly and brokenly.

Thor looks slightly confused; they told him about the Accords, about Leipzig, but they’d glossed over the finer points. This might be the first Thor’s hearing about Spider-Man.

“The kid from Queens,” Steve says, because Thor’s familiar with Queens from the couple battles the Avengers fought there back when they all more-or-less lived in the Tower.

The news is all sad, devastating, but Steve keeps going back to one point: Tony’s alive. Tony’s alive, and a wizard said they still have a chance, and Steve can only be grateful to Strange for saving Tony’s life.

***

There were multiple sites of pinpoint bleeding, but all easily fixable with the right medical equipment. Tony’s out of surgery by late afternoon, awake by nightfall. Rhodey’s in with him for almost an hour before he comes back to the common floor where people are lounging from the kitchen to the living room to the rec room, all pretending they can focus on anything but the fact that Tony’s home and that they might have a chance. Steve himself is sprawled across the loveseat, staring hard at the TV when Rhodey walks in and stands between him and the screen.

“He wants to talk to you,” Rhodey says, arms crossed over his chest.

“Really?” Steve says, and Rhodey only raises his eyebrows.

“Okay,” Steve says, and goes. Rhodey’s been nothing but hospitable and downright nice to the returning Avengers since they showed up at the compound, but at first that was because the world was ending, and then later because everyone was dead. As a general rule, Steve tries not to test Rhodes’s patience. If Tony’s back in the picture, Rhodey’s allowed to be as protective as he wants. As long as Tony’s back, Steve thinks he’d put up with a lot.

He doesn’t know what room Tony’s in, and Rhodey doesn’t come with him, so he has to flag someone down and ask once he gets to their medical wing. He smiles at the nurse, thanks him as he turns to leave Steve at the door, and then pauses. Without the shock and adrenaline, the full weight of Tony being alive and being able to see Tony again, to talk to him after the Accords, is very real. If he listens closely, Steve can hear the lights buzzing, the variously pitched humming of medical equipment, the beeping heart monitor, Tony’s own breathing. Steve’s very still in that moment, and he lets the brief sense of peace-grief wash over him. Everyone’s dead, they didn’t listen to Tony soon enough about the threat, he himself was instrumental in breaking the Avengers apart over _politics,_ but.

But Tony’s alive and he’s here and maybe Steve can make up for some of those things. Maybe they can start over, if Tony wants that half as badly as Steve does.

Tony’s dozing, but starts blinking his eyes open as soon as Steve opens the door. He looks washed out, kind of gray, and tired, but his eyes land on Steve and he smiles, relieved and welcoming.

“Hey,” Steve says, and his throat is so dry it comes out like a whisper. Tony’s grin grows so his teeth show.

“I told you so,” he says back, gentle and smug all at once.

Steve—shatters, momentarily. The air is vacuumed out of his lungs and he’s left standing there, because how can Tony say that and not lunge for Steve’s throat at the same time?

“Can’t believe I actually made it home for your hundredth,” Tony says, and his eyes have drifted to the ceiling because he’s still reclined most of the way and that’s his natural line of sight unless he’s actively holding his head up, and he remains oblivious to Steve’s almost-breakdown. “Though it’s a little late now, I guess. But we can celebrate tomorrow.”

“Oh, my God,” Steve says, and his heart feels broken. He walks forward numbly and sits in the chair by Tony’s bed. Elbow on his knee, hand over his eyes.

“Cap?” Tony says, sounding much less confident than he had a second ago. “Hey, it’s—”

“Who gives a shit about my birthday?” Steve says.

“Language,” Tony mumbles, and Steve ignores him (it’s what he does best).

“I sure as fuck don’t,” he continues, harsher than he intends. “In fact, you’re the first one to even bring up my birthday this year.” There’s a pause in which Steve looks up to catch Tony’s eye and convey his absolute bafflement. “You really want to _celebrate?”_

Tony shrugs the shrug of someone trying not to pull their stitches.

“Everyone but me and Nebula crumpled on Titan,” Tony says, sounding matter-of-fact, but Steve’s known this for years, that this is just how Tony speaks of tragedies. “Thanos said at one point that half of humanity would be alive when he was done with it, but that seemed a little—impossible. I kept expecting to get back and you’d all be dead. This is. More than I could hope for.”

“Well,” Steve says after a moment. When he smiles wryly, Tony mirrors it. “When you put it like that, I guess.”

A beat passes, two, and Steve reaches out to grip the rail on the side of Tony’s bed.

“We could probably—” Steve pauses, swallows past the lump in his throat. “—celebrate tomorrow. I hear they make fireworks that look like my shield these days.”

“It’s a plan,” Tony declares, with the same falsely light voice Steve can hear coming from his own mouth.

I’m not going to keep anymore secrets from you, Steve wants to say.

“You were right about more than my birthday,” Steve says instead. “And I’m so.” A deep breath, he’s not going to cry. He’s so goddamn tired of crying. “So sorry. For. How we treated you.”

“You’ll make it up to me,” Tony says, confidently and sleepily, and he’s visibly flagging now—of course he is, he just got out of surgery. How has he been awake for the past hour and a half?

“How?” Steve can’t help but ask. Tony snorts and reminds Steve of a kitten so much that his chest hurts.

“Just—I don’t need anything from you other than what I’ve needed from the start,” Tony says. “Listen to me when I say something. And…”

“And?” Steve prompts when he doesn’t continue. Tony’s looking at the ceiling again, not at him. Another few seconds pass before Tony opens his mouth again.

“And it would…help,” he says slowly, “if, when we go to fix this, however we end up doing that. If we could face it together.”

Tony’s whispering by the end of the sentence. And he looks afraid. Steve doesn’t suppose he’s given Tony much reason to believe he’s not about to be rejected outright by Steve. And he hates himself just a little bit for doing that to Tony. Sure, Steve was the first one to say they’d face the threat together, but he’s also the one who made that damn near unattainable. Oh, they both did their own damage in the whole Accords mess, but Steve’s the one who made everything impossible.

“I couldn’t do it any other way,” Steve says. Tony nods, still not looking at him. Steve doesn’t think Tony quite gets that Steve means that. This morning, the thought of trying to fix anything about the situation was more than daunting, it petrified him. He couldn’t even consider it or he wouldn’t be able to get out of bed to do anything at all. But Steve’s not completely stupid, and it’s not fair (he’s learning) to put his entire mental stability or ability to function on another person. (Plus, Steve and Tony haven’t even been on speaking terms; he gets that the situation’s been pretty unique, but that’s still weird.)

“I’m sorry about Peter,” Steve says after the silence has gone on. Tony takes a heaving breath, stiffening halfway through in discomfort, and lets it out in a controlled hiss.

“And I’m sorry about—Bucky,” Tony says, and Buck’s name sounds unnatural coming from his mouth, but Steve appreciates the gesture. Steve lets out a huff like a laugh.

“We could probably go back and forth for hours,” he says. “Exchanging sorries and condolences. We all did it about a week after Thanos. Just. Sat around after we’d figured out who was still there when the dust settled, and said ‘sorry’ all day long.”

“Glad I missed it,” Tony says and his mouth turns up but Steve can’t call it a smile. “I spent the entire trip back wondering if anyone would be left. Now that I’m here.” He raises his eyes and blinks rapidly, and Steve can’t look away even though he should at least give Tony the illusion of privacy. “I want to focus on who’s still here for—for a day. So, yeah. A celebration.”

“Okay, Tony,” Steve says.

“I’ve missed you,” Tony says, looking over, meeting Steve’s eyes directly. Steve thinks the last time he did that was in Siberia, in that bunker, demanding the truth. Before that, though—it had been months since they’d felt okay around each other. Probably since Ultron and, God, that was so long ago Steve wants to punch himself in the face. “And I owe you an ice cream cake.”

“I missed you too,” Steve says back quickly, while Tony’s still meeting his eyes. He takes Tony’s hand loosely, not actively holding it, but resting their fingers together. Tony lasts a couple minutes more, maybe. They chat about the bots, but Tony’s eyes droop shut quickly. Steve keeps talking until he’s sure Tony’s fully asleep, and then he just sits there. The sun’s gone down already, but the moon is visible through the window in Tony’s small recovery room. A nurse pops her head in once to silently look through Tony’s chart and smile reassuringly at Steve, but mostly Steve watches Tony and feels his own soul unwind itself from the tight, protective coil its been living in.

Rhodey comes back eventually. Steve gives up the chair immediately and says he’s going to bed. Rhodey’s eyes, hard since Tony showed up, sharpen as he grins.

“Resting up for the big party tomorrow?” he says, quiet enough to keep from disturbing Tony’s rest. Steve huffs.

“I guess,” he says, “though I’m still not entirely sure how that happened.”

“Can’t say no to the puppydog eyes,” Rhodey says, settling into the chair.

“Suppose not,” Steve says, thinking about how he never used to have that problem.

***

The next morning Steve’s woken at the normal time, but instead of his preselected alarm noise, it’s the _Star Spangled Banner._ He skips right over the customary annoyance and has to hide his smile in his pillow so FRIDAY can’t see. The trend continues all day with little reminders that it’s his (late) birthday—from the sesame seed bagel with the candle sticking out of the top waiting for him in the kitchen to DUM-E showering him with confetti while he's trying to read—up until the sun goes down and everyone they’ve got left is gathered on the roof with the piles of blankets and sleeping bags and throw pillows they’ve piled into a giant nest. They still spent all day working; they hosted a short and to-the-point press conference to announce Tony’s return and (try to) reassure the world that they’re doing their best to help and working on solving the infinite problems popping up. Natasha takes a Quinjet to Texas to help the population of Austin organize (and to put the fear of Soviet God into a gang of violent white suprematists terrorizing everyone), but she’s back by the time they’re gathering. Nobody sleeps elsewhere if they can help it these days. Of course, that’ll have to change; they can’t go on like this forever, but for now they’re getting away with day trips and giving local communities the tools they need to get by on their own. FRIDAY’s pumping in catchy music over the speakers up on the roof now with the remaining Avengers all present and accounted for, and Steve can see the lightning bugs flickering over the grass.

Tony’s a little slow and a lot stiff, but he’s up and moving around today. The last of the color is bleeding out of the sky when they light a ridiculous number of sparklers on top of an ice cream cake (as many as could be fit on top of the biggest cake their oven was capable of making). Steve only manages to blow them out because of the expanded lung capacity the serum gives him but even so he turns red in the face by the time he’s victorious. Clint finds this hilarious enough to laugh his real, old guffaws. The ones Steve hasn’t heard in quite a while. Tony goes to sit down once the sparklers are out because cutting this cake is going to take forever and Tony’s winded from just standing there, but Steve promises to bring him a piece.

Steve brings over a single plate with two pieces of ice cream cake side-by-side on it, two forks, and a pocketful of napkins. Tony’s propped up carefully by at least seven different pillows, Natasha leaning into his side. Rhodey’s talking with Thor and Nebula, all eating their own cake by one of the tiki torches lit to keep the worst of the bugs away. Clint’s cutting the cake and handing a slice over to Bruce, ignoring Rocket who’s been waiting longest and is getting progressively more pissed off about the lack of service.

He kicks his shoes off at the edge of the blankets and rests his palm against the top of Tony’s head briefly—he needs a haircut, but it’s a good look on him. The goatee is back to its sharp, trimmed standard, but he hasn’t cut his hair yet. It makes him look softer. At the touch, Tony turns to look up at Steve and beam.

“I bring cake," Steve says quietly.

“Then you may sit,” Tony says, wiping the smile off his face so that he looks perfectly serious. Steve lowers himself and sits next to Tony, close enough for them to share a plate (so they’re practically pressed against each other), careful not to bump into him.

“Your fork, good sir,” Steve says, and hands it over.

“My deepest gratitude, good knight,” Tony says. Steve snorts.

“Oh, please,” he says.

“What?” Tony challenges, and Steve shoves a forkful of cake into his mouth so he doesn’t have to answer.

Good knight, my ass, he thinks.

When he looks over again he catches sight of Natasha as she tries to slip away. He raises his eyebrows and Tony follows his gaze. Natasha’s half-standing already, but frozen now that she’s been caught.

“What’s up?” Tony asks, nonchalant.

“I,” Natasha says. She jerks her thumb over her shoulder. “Uh, I’m just gonna go make sure Rocket doesn’t actually stab Clint in the eye.”

Tony looks slightly confused, and like he might offer a hand.

“Uh-huh,” Steve says, because this is the same tone Nat used every time she tried to ditch Steve at the Triskelion mess so he’d be alone and hopefully sit with Katie from purchasing.

“I’ve got it though,” Natasha reassures them. “You two stay here. It’s almost time.”

“Okay,” Tony says. Natasha leaves then, and Tony says, “That was weird.”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Strange.”

“God, you’re a shitty liar,” Tony says. “I really don’t know how you managed it for years.”

Steve grits his teeth together but he supposes he deserves that dig. He should be surprised by the lack up until now. Even if Tony’s throwing him a party, Steve still lied to him for years about his parents’ deaths.

“Sorry,” Tony says before Steve can even open his mouth. “That was—ill-conceived. It was a bad joke. That shouldn’t even matter anymore, we have more important things to worry about.”

“We do, but I’m still sorry about everything that happened,” Steve says, then smiles. “And I’m much better at lying by omission, I assure you.”

Tony smiles back, amused and a little shy, and half his face glows red as the fireworks start up. The moment’s—not broken, but it melts into the next, stretches like cooking molasses. They settle into silence, balance the plate on both their knees, and turn to watch the show in the sky. Everyone’s quieted down except to ooh and ahh, and most of them mosey over to the blanket nest to lounge. Steve closes his eyes briefly, feels the shocks from the fireworks move over his body in waves, sees the brightness through his eyelids, focuses on the feeling of his team, his family surrounding him, all here to celebrate his birthday, to recognize they’re all here and alive and not done yet, not by a long shot.

He’s home, even if their lives are terrifying right now, even if Steve feels like he couldn’t possibly be enough. He’s home, and Tony’s shoulder is pressed against Steve’s arm, and Nat’s head is resting on Clint’s shoulder, and Bruce and Rhodey are arguing quietly about color schemes while Thor laughs at both of them, playing idly with one of Rocket’s ears. Nebula’s hanging back, but Steve thinks she might be on her third slice of cake, so there’s that. Steve’s nose burns and he leans into Tony.

“Thank you,” he whispers. Tony doesn’t answer, but he looks at Steve out of the corner of his eye and wrap an arm around him. Steve doesn’t know what they’re doing, he doesn’t even know who they are anymore. There was a time, before Thanos, before the Accords, before Ultron, when they were a solid team, when he and Tony were friends. But they were never like this before, and Steve’s not entirely sure he ever knew Tony as well as he thought he did (and even if he did, the last few years would be enough to change anyone).

This is a liminal space they’ve found themselves in. There’s no going back to the old normal now, just the hope and ability to steer them into a new, better way of living. Steve presses his nose to Tony’s shoulder and then turns so he can watch the fireworks dance in the sky. Tony’s hand moves from Steve’s shoulder, up to his neck, and squeezes. Slowly, Steve’s throat relaxes, the tears stop threatening to spill over. Their friends are dead, half the world is dead, Thanos is still out there, and Steve is so, so very tired of denying himself peace. Tomorrow they’ll start fighting again, Steve knows. He thinks he might be able to as long as his team is here again tomorrow night.

“I’m happy you’re still here, too,” Tony confesses in a whisper. “And I wouldn’t trade you either.”

Steve breathes, a full breath like he hasn't in weeks. He leans further into Tony's warmth, the hand at his neck, and tells himself they'll figure it out.

**Author's Note:**

> late! i know, we're well past the fourth of july, but at least i got the month right!


End file.
